Johanna Faust, a mixed race Jew, prefers to publish pseudonymously. She is committed: first, to preventing war, ecological disaster, and nuclear apocalypse; last to not only fighting for personal privacy & the freedom of information, but, by representing herself as a soldier in that fight, to exhorting others to do the same. She is a poet, always. All these efforts find representation here: "ah, Mephistophelis" is so named after the last line of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, whose heretical success flouted the censor for a time.

DING! DONG! NUKES ARE DEAD!




THEY'LL SOON BE DEAD! 

(I HOPE THEY'RE DEAD!)

Today, March 30, 2012, the global Nuclear industrial complex was dealt a stunning blow.







Add to that, and to the serious debate in Japan (where the people do not want the nukes to restart), this, from US News & World Report:


Expert: Nuclear Power Is On Its Deathbed
The disaster insurance for nuclear power plants in the United States is currently underwritten by the federal government, Cooper says. Without that safeguard, "nuclear power is neither affordable nor worth the risk. If the owners and operators of nuclear reactors had to face the full liability of a Fukushima-style nuclear accident or go head-to-head with alternatives in a truly competitive marketplace, unfettered by subsidies, no one would have built a nuclear reactor in the past, no one would build one today, and anyone who owns a reactor would exit the nuclear business as quickly as possible."
Read more


Of course, its going to be a long slow exit if they have their way.  Check out the ad next to that first screenshot: 'Obama Administration Banking on Next Generation Nukes.'

Nonetheless:  I'm going to celebrate.

Be seeing you! 

M.W.K.P.A. | "Isis Veiled," by The Tear Garden


Welcome to another iteration of

Music What Kicketh Political Ass.
What follows finds itself hyperlinked by way of explanation,
do follow those if you wish.
Without further tarrying I present 
"Isis Veiled" 
performed by The Tear Garden
With streaming music, below, 
to which may you happily attend your ears, 
& an original visual presentation of the lyric, 
from which, one's gaze to wander as you listen....




Isis Veiled by The Tear Garden on Grooveshark



A link to the discography, a link to the Wikipedia article,
latest news & tour dates also herein linked
and if you would like the pleasure 
of Mr. Edward Ka-Spel and the Tear Garden Live, 
here I have a faithful reproduction thereof -- do full screen it:





Be seeing you.

ex historia faustae, or from my browser to yours



quick and dirty.  my comments in green.  alarming info in red.  articles may turn up in future posts.

Record-Setting 100+ T Magnetic Field Achieved At Los Alamos - " the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory achieved a record-setting 100.75 Tesla magnetic field. To do this, scientists placed a resistive magnet (a sophisticated electromagnet) coupled to massive bank of capacitors within another magnet fixed at a 'lower' magnetic field. A short-lived pulse two million times stronger than the Earth's magnetic field was generated. The magnet itself made an eerie sound as it was energized (video)"   

Video lists agencies involved starting at around 2.22.




The following infographic presents the reality behind these American "sweatshops" - because this is the "quality" of job that is rising rapidly in the current economy (at the expense of traditional permanent jobs) to give the impression of an economic recovery. There is no point in making an ethical judgment - work conditions are as they are. Just as workers at FoxConn likely have far better conditions than their peers, at least in their view, so do these temp workers view their life as better than the alternative, which is unemployment. It is, as they say, what it is.


 In this article, I'm going to argue that the US government, in particular, is being overrun by the wrong kind of person. It's a trend that's been in motion for many years but has now reached a point of no return. In other words, a type of moral rot has become so prevalent that it's institutional in nature. There is not going to be, therefore, any serious change in the direction in which the US is headed until a genuine crisis topples the existing order. Until then, the trend will accelerate. The reason is that a certain class of people – sociopaths – are now fully in control of major American institutions. Their beliefs and attitudes are insinuated throughout the economic, political, intellectual and psychological/spiritual fabric of the US.


First the state steals the $1,343 and authorizes its parasitic predatory bag-"person" Wells Fargo Bank to steal another $100 for handling the state's theft. A week or two later the citizen is notified of the theft as a fait accompli. Now the onus is on the law-abiding citizen to attempt to reclaim his own money from a distant, all-powerful Kafkaesque state agency. How can this be legal in a nation supposedly operating under rule of law? Let's be very clear about what happens here in America on a daily basis...

Nature (abstract
MIT scientists precisely trigger memories in rats with light. 

"The Obama administration has approved guidelines that allow counterterrorism officials to lengthen the period of time they retain information about U.S. residents, even if they have no known connection to terrorism. The changes allow the National Counterterrorism Center, the intelligence community's clearinghouse for terrorism data, to keep information for up to five years." (Previously, tops, 180 days "unless a connection to terrorism was evident." )

"Researchers have made a cloak that can hide objects from static magnetic fields, realizing a theoretical prediction they made last year. This 'antimagnet' could have medical applications, but could also be used to subvert airport security. ...(abstract)." 

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2012/03/22/bloomberg_articlesM1A9PR0UQVI901-M1AG4.DTL
Toulouse Murder Suspect Killed in Raid After 32-Hour Siege

Incumbent French President Nicolas Sarkozy " 'Anyone who regularly consults Internet sites which promote terror or hatred or violence will be sentenced to prison,' he told a campaign rally in Strasbourg, in eastern France. 'Don't tell me it's not possible. What is possible for pedophiles should be possible for trainee terrorists and their supporters, too.' " 

 "As a part of National Consumer Fraud week, the Queensland Police are going war driving in order to identify insecure WiFi setups. from the press release 'The War Driving Project involves police conducting proactive patrols of residential and commercial areas to identify unprotected connections. Police will follow this up with a letterbox drop in the targeted area with information on how to effectively secure your connection.' 

Gee I wonder why? -- the only good web seems to be one that is as unfree and named as possible. 

" 'The operators of 20 of the nation's aging nuclear reactors, including some whose licenses expire soon, have not saved nearly enough money for prompt and proper dismantling. If it turns out that they must close, the owners intend to let them sit like industrial relics for 20 to 60 years or even longer while interest accrues in the reactors' retirement accounts.'" 

No they won't.  They'll try to get them relicensed.

"While it's generally accepted that memories are stored somewhere, somehow in our brains, the exact process has never been entirely understood. Strengthened synaptic connections between neurons definitely have something to do with it, although the synaptic membranes involved are constantly degrading and being replaced – this seems to be somewhat at odds with the fact that some memories can last for a person's lifetime. Now, a team of scientists believe that they may have figured out what's going on. Their findings could have huge implications for the treatment of diseases such as Alzheimer's." 

 "A group of U.S. federal cybersecurity experts recently said the Defense Department's network is totally compromised by foreign spies. The experts suggest the agency simply accept that its networks are compromised and will probably remain that way, then come up with a way to protect data on infected machines and networks."

Suuuuure.


"Hactivists — not cybercriminals — were responsible for the majority of personal data stolen from corporate and government networks during 2011, according to a new report from Verizon. The Verizon 2012 Data Breach Investigation Report found that 58% of data stolen in 2011 was the result of hactivism, which involves computer break-ins for political rather than commercial gain. In previous years, most hacking was carried out by criminals, Verizon said. Altogether, Verizon examined 855 cybersecurity incidents worldwide that involved 174 million compromised records. This is the largest data set that Verizon has ever examined, thanks to its cooperation with law enforcement groups including the U.S. Secret Service, the Dutch National High Tech Crime Unit and police forces from Australia, Ireland and London." 

Not only are we to believe that there has been a shift in crime from criminals to the even more evil 'hactivists' - it may be that these lower life forms have been responsible for the bulk of the crime all along.  Because you know that having integrity and a principled moral sense, as well as motivation enough to actually carry through with extracurricular projects based on ones ideals, we all know that that breed a character with traits far more despicable than the lowest of scumbag criminals.



Be seeing you.

T-Mobile's Web Guard: Lame Criteria Do Not Explain Many Blocked Websites



From the Open Observatory of Network Interference via Slashdot.  

10minutesaperdre.fr/  French funny news website
bbcprofit.com/  Financial advice website
cosmopolitan.com/  Cosmopolitan is an international magazine for women.  
el-annuaire.com/  French website index
elu24.ee/  Estonian news portal
girlpower.it/  Italian women advice web
hackbase.com/  Chinese computer security website
hackforums.net/  Computer security Forum
hltv.org/  Sports news website
ir-tci.org/  Iranian Forum
kath.net/  Religious news site
livesports.pl/  Polish sports news website
logicalmedia.com/  Logical Media is an Affiliate Network.
nullrefer.com/  Hide Refer hides the visitors’ refer[er] from being seen by other websites
p.tl/  Japanese URL shortening service
pitsirikos.net/  Greek political blog
                     sougouwiki.com/  Japanese wiki
statsie.com/  Website statistics collection site   
titan007.com/  Chinese sports news website
torproject.org  The Tor Project is dedicated to prov[id]ing anonymous secure communication
whatreallyhappened.com/  [non main stream] ...news site
wiki-live.com/  Online Article directory
wjunction.com/  Webmaster Hangout
www.chartsinfrance.net/  French pop music hit list
yusukebe.com/  Japanese blog
zonebourse.com/  French economics and financial news site

"...Web Guard is supposed to inhibit access to content that falls under the following categories: Alcohol, Mature Content, Violence, Drugs, Pornography, Weapons, Gambling, Suicide, Guns, Hate, Tobacco, Ammunition" says the OONI.   Interesting that sites that would merit an R or X rating were they films are listed twice.  

I know from experience that the inclusion of political websites is so extensive as to imply no error in algorithm.  All prepaid (read: anonymous) accounts are subject to this infantilizing of the T-mobile version of the Web, or the T-Web (pronounced 'tweb'), as Mr. Corporanon dubbed it.  

'Hello.  This is T-mobile.... May I help you?  ....You say you want out of the T-Web?   No problem!  We value our customer's satisfaction and will be happy to remove that for you! What kind of account do you have?  ...Oh, Prepaid, I see.  Hold on while I transfer you.'  

'Hello.  This is T-mobile Prepaid.... May I help you?  ....You say you want out of the T-Web?   No problem!  We value our customer's satisfaction and will be happy to remove that for you! ....To whom am I speaking?  What is your address? Zip code?  How old are you?'

No anonymous accounts with any ability to surf, if T-mobile can help it.  

The OONI has a record of a rather interesting back-and-forth with T-mobile, about what possible justification there could be for having the Tor Project on the list. Well worth the read.

Here's an anecdotal example of the joy of the T-web.  Eleven thirty at night in an urban metropolis: two people who smoke tobacco find they have but one cigarette left.  One has a T-mobile cell phone with T-Web enabled.  Both know there are at least a couple all night tobacconists within reasonable driving distance, but do not know where.  A search is performed on the T-Web version of google.  Keywords "all night tobacconist" and the name of the city.

The results - all of them - are links concerning various aspects of quitting smoking -- not a tobacconist among them.



Be seeing you.

Hack To Circumvent T-Mobile Web Guard And View Any Site You'd Like

UPDATE:  NEW HACK HERE
UPDATE: at end of post
This photo effed with by a female faust.




The following hacks have not been tested in the last year; at least one of them could, however, be counted on for viewing all sorts of banned content, including evil political sites like What Really Happened, Florida Oil Spill Law, and Black Listed News (all of which were, in my experience, banned by T-mobile's Web Guard's 'good intentions.'




In any event:


Method number one:  add "user@" after the "http://" and before the "www" in the url.  Sometimes instead of www: try it both ways.


Method number two: think of another page that you CAN get that has a link to the page that you want.  Go there and click on it.  (I made myself a special page of all my favorite links just for this purpose).  If your page is also banned, try mailing it to yourself.  Or data-encoding it (see the  data-developer tinyurl portal in the sidebar if your URI is too long).  Or both.


Method number three (and the most likely to work after one try): Enter a search term that will bring up your desired URL.  Get ready for some fancy thumbwork.  Click on it; click back, click on some other URL, click back to the one you want, click forward, back two, forward one -- always ending after a flurry of entries on the site you desire.  


... et voilà.




UPDATE

for those not prepaid
this just in from ehow:




Instructions
    • 1
    • Log on to your T-Mobile account (see Resources).
    • 2
    • Click the "Profile" link under "Manage" and click the "Edit" link next to "Phone Controls."
    • 3
    • Click and select the "Turn Off" radio button under each "Web Guard" line. Click the "Save changes" button to save your changes and disable Web Guard.






Be seeing you.

The Pro-Nuke Ad Aimed At Viewers Of The Daily Show (INCLUDES YOUTUBE'S NOW-DISABLED COMMENTS)


...for as long as the link still provides the function, that is.  To see reactions from Youtube and Twitter, hit the "read" button below the video - you will see quickly why they were disabled. Apologies if comments no longer show - leave  a note: if you are interested, I have screenshots of some...


Updates & addenda probable....




h/t to the readers of Energy News for inspiring me to scout out access to these comments.








Be seeing you.

those original posts of which there is reason to be proud

(dedicated to my sweet Godmother)

Is Fukushima An America Syndrome?
2010 DHS Wish List : Watch Out
"'Link in Your Mind' Cyberattacks and Fukushima"
Big Turd May Prove To Be From Recent Godzilla Rampage
About That Slag Melting Through The Rubble At Fukushima
My Response to Wikileaks 'collateral murder'
Google I love you, but...
Is BP Alone in Enforcing European Jet-Fuel Sanctions Against Iran?
Familiar (Self) Interpellallation | a video interlude
And Vat Grown Meat,Its Hour Come Round At Last, Is Slouching Towards Grocery StoresTo Be Sold
London: The historical Moment: Darcus Howe: tells it like it is
Signs of Radiation Sickness: Experiences Since March 11 in California
Tepco & Co: Some People's Children
Stuxnet and Fukushima Daiichi: Questions, Analysis and ...More Questions
Not A 'Scientific Report,' A 'Communications Product'!
The title isn't "BP Killed Lisa Nelson" (because then I'd have to add "allegedly")
DIGITAL TV IS A TWO-WAY TECH
Was the US Gov't In Cahoots With BP All Along?
What Abusive Naked Short Selling ?
Main Street Oakland Is Becoming A Ghosttown
Gulf Birds May Have Heavy Metal Poisoning
The CIA Kids Movie
RETRACTION: Monsanto DID NOT buy Blackwater/Xe. They merely rented it.
URGENT MESSAGE FOR GULF COAST RESIDENTS
Dear Big Bad Banker Who Wrote The Scary Email: Don't Worry...
Wikileaks Video & Soldier's Letter: UPDATE (Iraqis Respond!)
NOT TO BE MISSED: Senator Scolds Smirking Sachs CFO
Dealing With Formaldehyde, or, So You Got Stuck With A Toxic Trailer

for whom the bell trolls



N.B.: in the following rant, i purposefully maintain the (admittedly idiosyncratic) use of capitalization that as an artist i normally reserve for my more personal communication,  for reasons that i hope will become apparent.

the following rant grew out of my response to a comment that appeared on Alexander Higgins' Blog.  One Xavier saw fit to take aim at the indefatigable Alexander with the following forceful, if blunt, ad hominem attack because of...  a typo:

Xavier says...

“For those who think some random serious of events led up to this situation…”

“Serious of events” (?)
 
How illiterate are you?

How can you expect anyone to believe what you’ve written when you’re obviously dumb as a stump? 

1. newsflash: standardized spelling was not even considered desirable until relatively recentlyat the earliest, it began to be considered important in the middle of the 16th century.  

2.  this view was not held by most people until the beginning of the 20th century.  even then, the spellings themselves were not likely to be ones with which modern readers would be familiar or comfortable — notwithstanding the fact that they were the very same spelling variations upon which the most learned academic minds of the age agreed.  an example, from the same excellent Wikipedia article: 

By the 1870s, the philological societies of Great Britain and America chose to consider the matter.  After the "International Convention for the Amendment of English Orthography" that was held in Philadelphia in August 1876, societies were founded such as the English Spelling Reform Association and American Spelling Reform Association.... That year, the American Philological Society adopted a list of eleven reformed spellings for immediate use.  These were: arear, givegiv, havehav, liveliv, thoughtho, throughthru, guardgard, cataloguecatalog, (in)definite(in)definit, wishedwisht...  In 1883, the American Philological Society and American Philological Association worked together to produce 24 spelling reform rules, which were published that year.  In 1898, the American National Education Association adopted its own list of 12 words to be used in all writings.  These were: tho, altho, thoro, thorofare, thru, thruout, catalog, decalog, demagog, pedagog, prolog, program.


3.  before that time, there existed many variations, all equally right in the minds of honest, intelligent, believable individuals who settled upon these standards by use of the democratic process.  we assume they enjoyed the respect of their peers.  they did not come to this conclusion by some inborn instinctual apprehension of the Good, the True, and the Right.

4.  This respect was given and received for the content of written communications, not the outward form — an assumption that persists even today.  quaint though it may be, i think it one that is both civilized and correct (as perhaps you may gather from my own deliberate use herein of variant orthographical standards).  

5.  it is assumed that typographical errors are not errors of substance, but only of form.  the writing process takes on many forms, many means to the finished product, not one of which is better than another.  otherwise the use of a spellcheck would be a form of cheating or misrepresentation of oneself.  it is not.  this is why, before the advent of the personal computer, the final copy or 'proof' was 'read' by someone other than the author: to catch such errors.  this is why there is a spellcheck function included with most word processing programs today.  then as now: perfection would be unlikely even given reasonable effort. a civilized response would therefore be one tolerant of minor discrepancies.

6.  the word happened to be a correctly spelled word in its own right: "serious."  thus the matter over which a supposedly superior judgement took such umbrage was not, in fact, one for which an alert would be triggered by any modern spellcheck, and easily could have escaped a more traditional editorial methodology. 

7.  the most diligent of modern citizen publishers could therefore have made the same mistake.  to judge the worth of intellect based upon a mere typo, based upon an accident (and one as likely to befall even the best of bloggers posting today), is itself illiterate.  

8.  taken to their logical conclusion, hypotheses such as these do nothing to elevate the global conversation or hasten the evolution of critical thought.  these are the ends, so desperately needed now, the achievement of which has inspired so many of us global citizensthis is why more and more of us, journalists, bloggers, videographers, and so forth, seek to make our voices heard upon the modern miracle that is the World Wide Web.   
9.  the Web is so miraculous precisely because it is forgiving and reasonably easy to use.  it follows that typos such as that above are necessarily forgiven by the unspoken agreement of all those intelligent enough to see that the error itself could have happened to anyone, that judgement based upon such an arbitrary event would be unfair, and that to have somehow escaped such a fate is by no means an indication of intellectual prowess or strength of character.  the skills required to transmit the matter of one's ideas faithfully are not ones of which only a few of us are capable.  once put thusly into perspective, once considered against the backdrop of the political matter (Obama Invokes NDAA Declaring Threat From Iran A National Emergency) that was the original subject of the post, such a typographical accident is so trivial as to be almost meaningless.  

10.  "almost meaningless" — because — it serves as an allegorical parallel to the bigoted, intolerant, small-minded, violent criminal stupidity, from which cloth, with a mature and technological expertise, the Magick of Modern Propaganda has fashioned the ludicrous distraction known as the "Global War on Terror." that such a comment was proffered upon evidence so slender is certainly fitting, poetically just, and illustrative of the prevailing mindset that is perhaps the only real enemy we as a species have.  this is why i saw fit even to grace such a remark with a reply. 

in conclusion, let me address the author of the comment directly: 

considering with what we as modern humans are faced, if such comments are all of which you are capable, your power has been diverted, processed, used, and will likely be used up and disposed of without ever once being relevant, much like a tree felled for junk mail never once read.  if you demand nothing more of yourself, it is you, sir, who will never be believed; it is you who are "dumb as a stump."







In Honor Of EXSKF, A Most Excellent Blogger



The blogger of whom I am about to speak, arevamirpal::laprimavera (an acrostic of whose pseudonym marks the left margin of the poem below), has been, and continues to be, of incalculable value to our real time and historical understanding of the consequences of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear nightmare that struck the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant in Japan on March 11, 2011.  

Not only are these consequences still unfolding:  they are barely less dire than they were a year ago, and may be more so.  Our continued attention is vital if we are to develop intelligent, effective strategies with respect to our health.  No matter where we live, we will not be unaffected.  Responses, however optimal in theory, become literally no better than delusions, denial, and superstition, absent reliable information. 

Most main stream media, however, neither know nor care.  And they demonstrate their apathy and ignorance openly and without apology. The media landscape, despite the promised potential of a rapidly advancing, inherently democratic technology, is in fact so devoid of meaningful activity in this regard that without EX-SKF (and, it must be said, a small handful of notable others), even those who are most capable of serious inquiry would at best frequently find themselves halting and frustrated.

It is unfortunate that the brave, strange and horribly, irresponsibly  compliant, modern world of the 21st century has such journalists in it.  The author of EX-SKF is an individual who happened to find himself in the right place and at the right time to be able to begin to address this, and, more importantly, who recognized it as his duty. (Read his own account of it: Japan Marks March 11.)

We are lucky for that alone.  I think I may say, without exaggeration, that we may count ourselves unbelievably so when we realize how level headed, slow to jump to conclusions, rational, observant, patient, respectful of all viewpoints, tolerant, humble, capable of reporting his observations without confusing the facts with his own opinions, or the biases inherent in his cultural or political perspective. 

Were I naïve, I would still think (as I did in college) that a training firmly grounded in the scientific method would be such an asset as to be commonplace.  Certainly much, much more frequently encountered among thinking adults than it in fact turns out to be. It is clearly superior when merits are measured, be that at the beginning, middle, or end of a session of inquiry.  Superior by virtue of the usefulness of data collected through its lens;  by virtue of the precision with which specific details may be tested, rejected, or revised;  by virtue of  the verifiability of the patterns and correlations that may later be recognized; and  by virtue of the repeatability, and predictive accuracy, of the robust theories that result. 

This is progress.  This is practical.  This is success.  One does not have to limit the applications to the strictly scientific: thinking clearly brings success to all rational inquiry.  One would think that this is the fabled 'common' sense in its most basic form: frequent recalibration in light of the actual facts, as opposed to the fruits of the theory or model, that banishes the evil that would be wrought by force or fraud.

Perhaps because it works so well, it is, however, not common.  In fact, the widespread ability to think for oneself has been under seige, at least in America, for over a century.  The profits earned by successfully discovering truth, it would seem, are dwarfed by those earned by keeping it hidden.

I do not, however, actually believe that.  In fact I have the temerity to think that such ill gotten profits are short lived, since one cannot change the nature of phenomena merely by giving it another name, however clever, nor can one forestall dangerous consequences by refusing to address them, however fascinating or convincing the emotional appeal.

So tenacious is my optimism, in fact, so hardy and drought resistant, that not only would I like to think that I would do the same, given the same difficult circumstances — I would like to think that most of us would.  If we could.  I can not, can never regard the lying, corrupt, irresponsible, vicious, ugly, senseless behaviors of my fellow human beings without thinking: This is broken. This can be fixed. 

All that is necessary is that we understand our choices, that we be awake.  If people are good, and I believe we are, it seems too many of us are asleep; if this is true, let our consciences visit us in our dreams. If all good people are asleep, may they at least be asleep and dreaming.

A better world is possible.   

The author of EX-SKF is, if I may judge from his posts, one blogger who understands this, who possesses an uncompromising and hopefully uncompromisable sense of ethics.  For this, and to salute him in a manner hopefully fitting and to his liking, I present him with the following verse:





EX-SKF Marks March 11:
In Honor of Whom
       (or, once upon a time, 
       a beautiful child: 
       keys to mountains)

all of us (or is it just me)
respond more often, and more readily
either (if unseen) as --  known and known well -- (or
visible)  -- as -- more familiar still --
at best it seems proven in barely a glance
more than enough time to make that -- askance
it is this against which the best of us strive
reasoning thus (hopeful), our virtue to thrive:
purposes righteous make all outcomes serve;     
aspire perhaps just to be sure we deserve.
Love of Truth, though effect, by analogy draws us
: :
Love of Truth is after all, also -- what causes.
a chance misunderstanding can (such a swift easy doubt)
poison this well as from within as without
respect of perspective, or the faith of reflections,
intelligence humbles the heart's best intentions.
may we then find in this virtue such pleasure
as will, enough to discover, find leisure;
vanity prove no temptation at all;
each as eagerly heed his own call:
response as able as willing: as if, in what was heard,
as much the call -- as his calling -- inferred.
by johanna faust




 links:

on the anniversary of the disaster:

by arevamirpal::laprimavera

The poem in it's first 


Fukushima 
Nuclear Disaster
 blogs of note:

  







and perhaps now and again
my own